William Cowper: Quotes about time

William Cowper was (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist. Explore interesting quotes on time.

William Cowper: 348 quotes8 likes

“Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft-times no connexion, Knowledge dwells
in heads replete with thoughts of other men,
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 88.

“I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.”

The Iliad of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Preface.

“Philologists, who chase
A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.”

William Cowper Retirement

Source: Retirement (1782), Line 691.

“Those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 514.

“Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.”

Letter to the Rev. John Johnson, (29 September1793).

“So manifold, all pleasing in their kind,
All healthful, are the employs of rural life,
Reiterated as the wheel of time,
Runs round; still ending, and beginning still.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 624.

“His head,
Not yet by time completely silvered o'er,
Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpaired.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 702.

“Misses! the tale that I relate
This lesson seems to carry —
Choose not alone a proper mate,
But proper time to marry.”

"Pairing Time Anticipated, Moral" (c. 1794).